Peace. Education. Aspiration. Respect. Love. Smiles.
Project PEARLS is a non-profit organization that aims to help marginalized children, especially the urban poor. One of the communities they help are those in Helping Land, also called Garbage Land, in Tondo.
This is where the trash from the metro are dumped. And this is also home to some urban poor who rely on food they get from the trash to live.
My friend, Hope Vega, was so gracious in inviting me to join their feeding program to celebrate her birthday, along with her friends. We went early morning on a Sunday and took various public transportation from Cubao to Tondo, Quezon City.
Tried talking and interacting with the kids while waiting for the program to start. Many of them attend school in nearby communities. They get help from the Ate’s and Kuya’s of Project PEARLS who visit them on weekends.
We started the day’s program with a prayer and praise.
Part of the feeding program was some art activity to help develop the kids’ creativity. The day’s art activity was to create a Christmas Card for the kids’ parents.
I hope the parents got to read their kids’ heartfelt messages.
On our walk back, these kids gamely posed for a picture.
I hope there’s more that can be done to uplift the lives of the people in Helping Land. As a start, I hope more will consider sponsoring a day’s feeding program which costs about Php 8,000.
For more information, please refer to Project PEARLS’ Facebook page.
P.S. My left eye looks a bit weird since I had vitrectomy seven weeks before for my detached retina. Eye was not yet fully healed but I felt well enough to be part of the activity.
My Kind Of Perfect 